Vayechi 5769

So he (Jacob) blessed them that day, saying, “By you shall Israel bless saying, ‘May God make you like Ephraim and like Menashe’”… (Beresheit 48:20)

It’s odd enough that one verse in Torah should repeat the word laymor (saying). It’s odder still that each laymor is spelled differently. The first is spelled with an extra vav (lamed-alef-mem-vav-resh). This is only instance in Torah in which laymor is spelled this way (there are two more instances in all of Tanakh, both in Jeremiah.) The second laymor is spelled in the usual fashion (lamed-alef-mem-resh).

Modern scholarship explains spelling variations several ways. For example, as we know, spellings vary over time. If a word is spelled two different ways in the Torah, perhaps they were written at different times by different authors. But we’re discussing two different spellings in the same verse! Another possibility is scribal error that is preserved over time. This explanation as well strains credulity. There are only three Hebrew words between each laymor: how could a scribe possibly fail to catch such an error?

The only credible possibility is that the spelling variation is deliberate. What, if anything, does the Torah mean by spelling laymor with an extra vav?

Most traditional meforshim (interpreters) duck the question. The Zohar (parashat vayechi), however, takes it on:

[T]he word 'laymor' is normally spelled without vav, but here there is an additional vav. What is the reason for the difference?... It is an allusion to a firstborn son, as it is written: "Yisrael is my son, my firstborn" (Shemot 4:22) and "Efraim is my firstborn" (Jeremiah 31:8). For this, there is an additional vav.

Rav Berg, commentator on the Zohar, explains that the letter vav alludes to birthright. In our verse, Jacob transfers Menashe’s birthright to Ephraim. The vav is meant to signal to us that the transfer is occurring.

But Rav Berg’s explanation amounts to a tautology. The text tells us explicitly that a transfer of birthright is occurring: we have no need of an extra letter to hint at the transfer. I confess I cannot understand the Zohar’s explanation of the extra vav!

Vav is the first letter of every word at the top of all but six columns in a Torah scroll. This tradition is meant to signify the continuity and unity of the Torah. Perhaps the vav is meant to focus our attention on the continual transfer of the birkat ha-banim (blessing of the children) from Jacob to his grandchildren and down the chain to us and our children.